Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 111-102 win over the Phoenix Suns (27-19) on Sunday night at Mortgage Matchup Center to close its five-game West Coast trip with a winning 3-2 record. The Heat (25-22) now returns home to face the Orlando Magic at Kaseya Center on Wednesday:
This was supposed to be a scheduled loss for the Heat. But the Heat pushed through some challenging circumstances to clinch a winning West Coast trip.
Not only did Sunday mark the Heat’s fifth road game in seven days, but the Heat also was playing after a long night that didn’t include much sleep.
Following Saturday night’s win over the Jazz, the Heat’s flight from Salt Lake City to Phoenix was delayed by more than three hours. That led to the Heat landing in Phoenix at 4:30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time for a game that tipped off less than 14 hours later.
It wasn’t pretty, as the Heat shot just 41.9 percent from the field and 9 of 36 (25 percent) from three-point range in the game. But the Heat grinded out the win behind a quality defensive effort and a strong start to the fourth quarter.
The Heat led by as many as 12 points in the first half before entering halftime with a 10-point advantage. The Suns then cut the deficit to five entering the fourth quarter.
But the Heat opened the fourth quarter on a 19-6 run to push its lead up to 18 points and blow open the game. The Heat ended up outscoring the Suns 29-25 in the final period on the way to the nine-point win.
It helped that the Suns also dealt with their own shooting struggles on Sunday, as Phoenix closed shooting 37 percent from the field and 7 of 35 (20 percent) on threes.
Bam Adebayo led another balanced attack for the Heat, finishing with a team-high 22 points to go with seven rebounds and two steals.
Jaime Jaquez Jr. added 20 points, five rebounds and six assists off Miami’s bench.
Seven Heat players finished Sunday’s victory with double-digit points. Also, the Heat’s reserves combined to outscore the Suns’ bench 46-28.
Dillon Brooks recorded a a game-high 26 points for the Suns.
Even after taking an elbow to the head late in Saturday’s win over the Jazz, Heat rookie guard Kasparas Jakucionis was back in the starting lineup 24 hours later. But both the Heat and Suns were still missing key players.
Jakucionis, who was listed as questionable because of a facial contusion before being cleared to play in Phoenix, made his third straight start for injured guard Davion Mitchell and the fifth start of his young NBA career on Sunday. Jakucionis again started alongside Norman Powell, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins and Adebayo.
Jakucionus, 19, totaled seven points on 2-of-5 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 shooting from three-point range, six rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block in 23 minutes in Sunday’s victory.
After playing only 53.7 seconds in the NBA through the Heat’s first 26 games of the season, Jakucionis has now played in 20 of the Heat’s last 21 games in large part because of the team’s injury issues.
Mitchell, who has started in each of his 40 appearances this season, missed his third straight game and his fifth game in the last seven games on Sunday because of a sprained left shoulder.
Mitchell initially suffered the shoulder injury while trying to run through a screen during the Heat’s Jan. 13 win over the Suns. After hurting his shoulder on Jan. 13, Mitchell missed the next two games before returning to play in two games and then re-aggravating the injury during Tuesday’s win over the Sacramento Kings.
“He’s definitely making progress, but we need to go through some kind of workout where he takes contact and then see how he responds to that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked for an update on Mitchell’s status ahead of Sunday’s game in Phoenix. “But everything else is trending in a really good way.”
Along with missing Mitchell, the Heat was also without starting guard Tyler Herro (right costochondral injury to ribs) and backup center Kel’el Ware (right hamstring strain) against the Jazz.
The Heat was also missing Vlad Goldin (G League) and Terry Rozier (not with team) on Saturday.
The Suns were without four-time All-Star guard Devin Booker (right ankle sprain). lt marked the first game that Booker has missed since turning his ankle in Friday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
Booker is averaging 25.4 points, four rebounds and 6.2 assists per game in 41 appearances for the Suns this season.
The Suns fell to 1-4 in the five games that Booker has missed so far this season.
The Suns were also missing guard Jalen Green (right hamstring injury management) on Sunday.
The Heat is suddenly one of the NBA’s best offensive rebounding teams, but it struggled to grab defensive rebounds at times against the Suns.
Just one night after grabbing a season-high 26 offensive rebounds in Saturday’s win over the Utah Jazz, the Heat put together another standout performance on the offensive glass.
The Heat finished Sunday’s victory with 19 second-chance points on 18 offensive rebounds.
This is the continuation of a recent trend for the Heat, which entered Sunday with the NBA’s 20th-ranked offensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available defensive rebounds a team grabs) at 29.6 percent this season but has been among the league’s best offensive rebounding teams in recent weeks.
In the six games leading into Sunday’s contest in Phoenix, the Heat posted the league’s third-ranked offensive rebounding percentage (36.1 percent). The Heat has scored more than 15 second-chance points in five of those games.
The only issue is the Suns finished with 21 offensive rebounds. The Heat’s defensive rebounding wasn’t up to its usual high standards on Sunday.
Powell continues to battle through back pain and shooting struggles for the Heat.
Powell has been on the injury report with lower back tightness in each of the last three games, and he has played through the pain all three contests.
But Powell has struggled to make shots, especially from three-point range during the last three games.
In Thursday’s loss to the Trail Blazers in Portland, Powell scored 18 points but shot 0 of 7 from behind the arc.
In Saturday’s win over the Jazz in Salt Lake City, Powell recorded 13 points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting from deep.
And in Sunday’s win over the Suns, Powell totaled 16 points on 5-of-21 shooting from the field and 2-of-11 shooting on threes. But Powell did grab 10 rebounds.
This is Powell’s first real shooting slump of the season, as he has been one of the NBA’s most efficient offensive players this season prior to this stretch.
Powell, 32, entered Sunday averaging 23.3 points per game while shooting 48.1 percent from the field and 40 percent from three-point range this season.
Powell began the day as one of just six players in the NBA averaging at least 23 points per game while shooting 48 percent or better from the field and 40 percent or better on threes this season. The others on that impressive list are Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, Los Angeles’ Kawhi Leonard and Houston’s Kevin Durant.
So this has been an uncharacteristic stretch for Powell.
After a busy week on the road that included five games in seven days, the Heat now finally returns home for some important games in its push to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament.
The Heat will have two days off before hosting the Orlando Magic on Wednesday. The Heat will play four of its next five games at Kaseya Center, with all five of those games coming against Eastern Conference teams that would be in the play-in tourney if the season ended Sunday.
After hosting the Magic on Wednesday, the Heat will play three straight games against the Chicago Bulls (Thursday in Chicago, Saturday in Miami and Sunday in Miami) before hosting the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, Feb. 3.
The Heat, which entered Sunday in eighth-place in the East, is also again in play-in tournament territory after needing to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tourney in each of the last three seasons.
The play-in tourney features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference
Entering Sunday, the Magic sat in seventh place in the Eastern Conference with a 23-21 record, the Heat found itself in eighth place with a 24-22 record, the Bulls occupied ninth place with a 23-22 record and the Hawks came in at 10th place with a 22-25 record.